Traditional
English May Day rites and celebrations include Morris dancing, crowning a May Queen and celebrations involving a maypole.
May Day has
been a traditional day of festivities throughout the centuries. May Day is most
associated with towns and villages celebrating springtime fertility (of the soil, livestock, and people) and revelry with
village fetes and community gatherings. Seeding has been completed by this date and it
was convenient to give farm labourers a day off.
The
May Day bank holiday, on the first Monday in May, was traditionally the only one to affect
the state school calendar, although new arrangements in some areas to even out the length
of school terms mean that Good Friday (a common law holiday) and Easter Monday (a bank holiday), which vary from year to year,
may also fall during term time. The Spring Bank Holiday on the first Monday in
May was created in 1978; May Day itself – May 1 – is not a public
holiday in England
(unless it falls on a Monday).
In the 20th
century May Day has also become linked to International Workers' Day in Great Britain,
even though the holiday is not officially a "Labour Day". In London the May Day march and rally, organised by the London May Day
Committee (South East Region Trades Councils), gather together in Clerkenwell
Green near the Marx Memorial Library before marching to Trafalgar Square for a rally with speeches from representatives of local, national and
international trades unions and campaigning organisations. This event always
takes place on May 1 with the intention to reinstate May 1, regardless of what
day it falls on, as a national holiday. More images and information of London's May Day rally is
covered by the "Working Class Heroes" project.
